which bcd for padi instructor?

[rivers]

The issue in IE is that you don't have the luxury of missing the 5 count or you fail your Rescue #7 scenario. In real life yes, you miss by a little, pack 2 breaths and continue. We are strictly talking IE here where demonstration skills are required. 1...2....3...inhale...simulate rescue breath... somewhere in those 1-3 you have time to do something.

You can undo waist and crotch strap in that time. hell, you can even continue doing it during the rescue breaths. getting someone out of a backplate and wing that is properly adjusted is not difficult. Once my waist strap is undone, i fall out of my harness. I dive off of ribs, where i need to de-kit in the water, and the longest part of me de-kitting is undoing my drysuit inflate if i have cold hands.
Anyone I dive with that dives a jacket, I tell them if they need to, cut me out of my harness, my knife is here. And I wouldn't hesitate to cut someone out of their kit if needed.

 

[boulderjohn]

The issue in IE is that you don't have the luxury of missing the 5 count or you fail your Rescue #7 scenario. In real life yes, you miss by a little, pack 2 breaths and continue. We are strictly talking IE here where demonstration skills are required. 1...2....3...inhale...simulate rescue breath... somewhere in those 1-3 you have time to do something.

And remember that in the IE it is not you who is removing your equipment. It is someone who may never have even seen it before being asked to do it with you as the victim. I would feel pretty crappy if someone failed the IE because I threw a curve like that.

Like some others, I use a BP/W with a long hose in my own diving, but I usually use the shop's gear in the pool so the students see me demonstrate with the same stuff they use. last weekend the shop had me do a private instructional session for a student while regular classes were gong on, and there were not enough pool BCDs for me to use. I did it in my BP/W without any trouble. When I am in the open water with students, I always use my own gear and make sure they understand the differences.

 

[beanojones]

And remember that in the IE it is not you who is removing your equipment. It is someone who may never have even seen it before being asked to do it with you as the victim. I would feel pretty crappy if someone failed the IE because I threw a curve like that.

Like some others, I use a BP/W with a long hose in my own diving, but I usually use the shop's gear in the pool so the students see me demonstrate with the same stuff they use. last weekend the shop had me do a private instructional session for a student while regular classes were gong on, and there were not enough pool BCDs for me to use. I did it in my BP/W without any trouble. When I am in the open water with students, I always use my own gear and make sure they understand the differences.

Everything here seconded, expecially the part about helping out fellow IE candidates during the rescue. Get a standard rental style BCD, wear a weight belt and not integrated weights* for the water work (both confined and open water) portion of the IE. Even if you never plan on teaching in it. But as noted a bunch of times in this thread, even people completely committed to teaching in BP/W find themselves teaching in a jacket BCD with a weight belt down the road for a number of good reasons anyway.

One thing to remember that test proficiency is not the same as real world proficiency. PADI Instructor Exams are just a lot of test stress packed into a short time frame that costs a lot of money.

There are people who react badly to tests that have no problems with stress, but the Instrcutor Examiner has no choice but to fail someone who gets hung up. I get to see people losing their **** in IEs who are fully functional adults in real life, in all manner of stressful situations, but are just a mess in the IE. Especially after failing the rescue eval one time. Add to the fact that the rescue eval is often the last activity (extra stress) or it is right before the Open Water exercises where no one is actually thinking about the thing at hand, and instead running down the list of potential problems.

All that money paid for the IDC/IE/Membership/Insurance is basically pushing down on their heads.

*Failing to recognize integrated weights is the main reason I see people failing the IE rescue eval. The candidates are given a blank weight belt, and then they forget to take out their integrated weights, and then everything goes to heck. Remember your fellow candidates are not necessarily going to be able to communicate with you for langauge reasons.

 

[Pullmyfinger]

One thing to remember that test proficiency is not the same as real world proficiency. PADI Instructor Exams are just a lot of test stress packed into a short time frame that costs a lot of money.

There are people who react badly to tests that have no problems with stress, but the Instrcutor Examiner has no choice but to fail someone who gets hung up. I get to see people losing their **** in IEs who are fully functional adults in real life, but are just a mess in the IE. Especially after failing the rescue eval one time. Add to the fact that it is often the last activity (extra stress) or it is right before the Open Water exercises where no one is actually thinking about the thing at hand, and instead running down the list of potential problems.

All that money paid for the IDC/IE/Membership/Insurance is basically pushing down on their heads.

That is very true....and a very real thing.

---------- Post added July 27th, 2014 at 08:27 PM ----------

getting someone out of a backplate and wing that is properly adjusted is not difficult. Once my waist strap is undone, i fall out of my harness.

I agree with you here, however I have seen a few divers that just order a back plate wing, and set it up themselves (no problem with that).
It seems they usually end up adjusting the harness too tight. It would be a bit of a struggle to get them out of their (too tight) harness while being evaluated during an IE.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

I'd wonder if they should be in an IE if they don't know how to properly adjust their gear. Plenty of resources for how to do that. Would make me wonder if their overall prep and planning skills are instructor level. Which they should be long before taking any instructor exam.

 

[boulderjohn]

I'd wonder if they should be in an IE if they don't know how to properly adjust their gear. Plenty of resources for how to do that. Would make me wonder if their overall prep and planning skills are instructor level. Which they should be long before taking any instructor exam.

The nice thing for them is that if they don't belong in an IE because they do not now how to adjust their BP/W properly, it isn't their problem--it's the problem of the other student who has to get it off them. That student has to also use a methodology he or she has never seen and never practiced.

 

[beanojones]

And unfortunately, in the compressed space of the IE (even more so without the orientation the night before the two days of test/evaluation stress that seems to happen with the smaller IEs), and given the language barriers which might be there, there is might be no way for the sort of simple review that makes everything understandable, including asking the BP/W wearer to loosen up their shoulder straps to make things easier for the course

Going through IEs with 25 fellow candidates is easy. You get grouped with the same language people, you have time with that group because large groups inherently create dead time, and with the same language grouping, the language skills to check everything out. And the one gear outlier has the opportunity to make sure every one understands his gear. If the IE has an orientation session, people even have the evening to change their gear setups. I would not want to be the only jacket user in a BP/W group any more than I would like to be the only BP/W user in a jacket.

With the smaller IEs, you might be the only person that speaks your language outside of an interpreter and the IE person, neither of whom is supposed to give the casual informal help that squares everything away quickly. We all learn in rescue how to run down new gear, but that presupposes we can actually ask questions of the gear owner.

Here's another small thing that gets people in trouble, because both that and the integrated weight came up on the most recent IE, during the rescue eval, and the language barrier was in force: BP/Ws have no chest clip, neither do certain brands of BCDs (TUSAs come to mind). With no language barrier it could become a teaching point in between candidates for the retry. But the two candidates did not share a language, so they had to spend time stressing out, miming out what to do with each other.

I love scubaPro Classics, the old non integrated weight versions. But those too, are next to impossible to get off someone if you have not done it before, and doubly so if the person has a smaller shoulder width, and has thus chosen a smaller size to stabilize on the shoulder. Once the technique is known to fold the arm, it's a breeze. Without that technique, it's near impossible. ANd it is hard to learn new techniques in the time frame of the rescue eval during the IE. I love it when people do, but it's not realistic to expect it.

As has been mentioned many times, in a real rescue, cutting off anything is completely justified. In the IE rescue eval you would be fail because it is not a teaching demo.

 

[Divetech99]

OP, specific to the equipment, I had the same question for my IDC/IE. I'm a tec diver and have been using a BPW for the past 20 years right after my OW in 1991. A few months ago, as I was preparing for my IDC/IE, I sought the advice of the folks here since I wanted to use a BPW for my IE. BoulderJohn, RJP and others gave very sound advice. I listened to them. Therefore:

- for my IDC/IE, I used a rental BCD Jacket. It was a big factor to my fellow IE Candidates during the Rescue7 test.

- I teach in a standard BCD Jacket. This mimics what my students use.

- I fun dive using my BPW.

Bottom line, it's not about you, or your biases towards the "right" gear and what you're comfortable with. It's about your students, your fellow IDC/IE candidates and the process. If you're ready for the IDC/IE, you should be able to do the skills and demos in any gear.

 

[Frosty]

I was genuinely concerned about this exact subject.
Reality is that when you go into the daily grind teaching/assisting you grab whats on the hook and use it.
The very simple reason is you are "the gear donor"
Bcd too big/small in the water,mask not quite right ,fins not perfect etc etc You are the first to ditch gear and give it to the students.
You then make do with whats left.
More with pool sessions than in the sea but its definitely a BIG advantage to the instructor/LDS if you are on the ball ready to donate.
Yea spare gear is always on hand. But that's your job to sort out. Getting the student flow happening is important
-Ohh hey feel free to burn me down on this--its just what I observed.

 

[rivers]

I was genuinely concerned about this exact subject.
Reality is that when you go into the daily grind teaching/assisting you grab whats on the hook and use it.
The very simple reason is you are "the gear donor"
Bcd too big/small in the water,mask not quite right ,fins not perfect etc etc You are the first to ditch gear and give it to the students.
You then make do with whats left.
More with pool sessions than in the sea but its definitely a BIG advantage to the instructor/LDS if you are on the ball ready to donate.
Yea spare gear is always on hand. But that's your job to sort out. Getting the student flow happening is important
-Ohh hey feel free to burn me down on this--its just what I observed.

Actually, you should own your own gear by the time you reach the pro level. I'll be damned if a student uses any of my kit that I spent my hard earned money on to buy and maintain